


first light

by amillionsmiles



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 15:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14621694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amillionsmiles/pseuds/amillionsmiles
Summary: “It’s recorded and I watch it faster on my own time anyways,” Keith says, halfway to biting into his hamburger.  A part of Shiro’s heart gets torn into right then and there, because he wants to stay, but office hours start in five minutes and he needs all the help he can get.That’s the real kicker: he doesn’t even have time to be stupidly, secretly in love with his best friend these days.or: Shiro just needs to sleep.





	first light

**Author's Note:**

> commissioned as a birthday fic; this prompt was very cathartic to write <3

“Shiro.  Shirooooo.  _Shiro._ ”

Shiro snaps to attention just in time to make sense of Lance’s hand, fingers blurring as they wave in front of his face.  The dining hall comes back in focus: silverware clinking against dishes, the distant _beep_ of the card reader as students swipe in.  Guilt makes him push a cucumber across his plate, stalling for time as he tries to latch on to something he remembers from their conversation.  _Weekend, beach…_

“Shiro, are you okay?  You’ve been spacing out a lot recently.” Hunk asks this from across the table. His fork hovers in front of his mouth as he waits for an answer, a piece of lettuce speared on it.  Strangely, Shiro feels a lot like the leaf in question—pinned, suspended.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  It’s just the usual—big test coming up next week, you know.”

A sympathetic nod and the topic gets dropped.  It’s common fare among the student body, commiseration as currency.  Everyone’s always busy doing _some_ thing: Lance has club swim and the upcoming production of _Phantom of the Opera,_ Hunk’s got robotics and is teaching a student-led course on French cooking. 

It’s not like this is Shiro’s first rodeo, anyways.  For four years he’s juggled everything on his plate.  Senior spring semester, so close to the finish line—he should be cruising, not buckling under the combined weight of lab work, RA-ing, pledgemaster duties and his honors thesis. 

“Hey.”  The chair beside him scrapes backwards and Keith slides into it, somehow managing not to spill the glass of orange juice balanced precariously on the plate in his right hand. 

“How was lecture?” asks Hunk.

“I didn’t go.”

“Keith,” Shiro says, mildly scolding.

“It’s recorded and I watch it faster on my own time anyways,” Keith says, halfway to biting into his hamburger.  A part of Shiro’s heart gets torn into right then and there, because he wants to stay, but office hours start in five minutes and he needs all the help he can get.

That’s the real kicker: he doesn’t even have time to be stupidly, secretly in love with his best friend these days.

“I’ve gotta go.  See you guys later,” he says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and grabbing his dirty dishes.  The corner of Keith’s mouth dips as he chews, but only for the barest moment before he nods, Lance and Hunk waving goodbye.

 

o.O.o

 

On Saturday, Shiro drives to the beach.  Keith is in the front seat, feet propped up on the dashboard.  In the back, Allura debates what to put on the playlist for the hour and a half long trip.  Matt’s in charge of the other car and whatever ruckus ensues when you put Hunk, Lance, and Pidge in the same space. 

By the time they arrive, the air has started to cool.  Shiro pulls over to the side of the road to park the car, a dense crop of bushes obscuring most of the view of the beach. 

Allura gets the bag of tent poles.  The alcohol gets split between Shiro and Keith.  Together, their trio starts down the path until it drops off.  Buried into the side of the small cliff is the familiar tree, a rope tied around one of its knobs.  The rope winds its way down the rest of the cliff, its end resting in the sand far below.

As a group, they’ve taken to calling this particular spot “Struggle Beach.”  Shiro first visited it freshman year, as a newly minted fraternity pledge.  They’d spent the night drinking, talking, and generally bonding, but in the morning Shiro had woken up still high, having underestimated the holdover effects of the edible he’d taken.  Hauling himself up a cliff while wearing a backpack full of empty beer bottles, convinced one of the clouds in the sky might genuinely be following him, had been character building, and enlightening in more ways than one.

“Watch out.”  Carefully, Keith maneuvers around him in order to toss their sleeping bags down into the sand.  The soft rolls hit the ground, tumbling a bit further before stopping.  The rope pulls taut, coarse in Shiro’s hand as he digs his heels in, slowly lowering himself.

They’ve set up the tent by the time Matt’s car arrives.  Hunk starts heating the burritos over the fire, each one carefully wrapped according to their preferences. 

“Pidge,” he calls, nudging the first one out of the fire with a stick.  “This one’s yours.”

Pidge comes running across the sand, settling on one of the logs ringed around the campfire.  Gingerly, she peels the foil away, yelling _“Lance!”_ when a frisbee accidentally flies into their midst, kicking up sand.

“Not my fault!” defends Lance.  “Matt threw it over my head.”

“I’m surprised anything gets over your head, what with how long your arms are,” says Allura, sitting delicately next to Pidge.

“Wait—you’re saying that as a compliment, right?”

“Here.” Keith’s knee knocks against Shiro’s.  He’s got two burritos—one with a _K_ scrawled in Sharpie, the other from Hunk’s stash of extras.  Keith unwraps the extra burrito first, pinching the green bell peppers from it.  Instinctually, Shiro offers his foil as a makeshift plate, accepting the discarded items. 

It’s these quiet exchanges that form the backbone of their relationship.  What Keith gives, Shiro accepts: a half-smile, an eye roll, the faint flicking motion Keith makes when pushing a lock of hair out of his eyes.  It’s why Keith will follow Shiro into the surf later that night, muttering, _“It’s fucking **cold,”**_ under his breath as the water swirls around their ankles.  But still, he’ll stay next to Shiro and indulge his silent contemplation, the two of them watching moonlight play on the night-slicked waves. 

 _You’re here instead of doing work and that’s okay,_ Shiro says to himself, toes curling in the wet sand.  He tries to ground himself with the reassurances: _this is worth it, it’s okay, it’s okay._

o.O.o

 

In the morning, though, the luster has worn off.  They drive back to campus, returning to a bubble where time is pressingly real and constantly slipping from Shiro’s grasp.  His calendar is a horrendous mess of stacked boxes, barely any white space in between.  The next week hits hard and fast, and on Tuesday, with the threat of his biomedicine test looming, Shiro barricades himself in his room.

As an RA, he’s used to having an open door.  His residents must sense the despair leaking out from under the cracks, though, because they steer clear. 

It’s a strange feeling, to be a spectator to your own bad habits.  Shiro’s talked enough freshmen through pre-test hyperventilation and post-test breakdowns that he can rehearse the spiel in his sleep: _Cs get degrees.  College classes are hard.  It’s not the end of the world.  You’re so much more than your GPA._

But advice is a bit different, when applied to yourself.  Shiro’s been dean’s list for all the semesters he’s been here so far, and he’ll be damned if he lets up now.  He skips a meal, then a shower.  Tuesday blurs into Wednesday into Thursday.  He gets a splitting headache but pops an Advil.  In the evening, a random bout of chills overtakes him, but that gets remedied when he wraps himself in a blanket.

There’s some irony, Shiro realizes, in the fact that he’s poring over questions on homeostatic mechanisms when his own body is so far out of whack.  But that’s proof that he isn’t _that_ far gone, yet—at least he has enough perspective to recognize the morbid humor of the whole thing.

 

o.O.o

 

 _Tap. Tap. Tap._   The persistent sound infiltrates his dreams—with a start, Shiro jerks his head.  The clock on his desk reads _12:00_.  Blearily, he drags a hand down his face, rubbing his eyelids and temple.  The page of notes he’d been working on has a blue pen streak down it, the aftermath of his dozing off.

 _Tap._ More impatient, this time.  Frowning, Shiro squints at his window, blinking twice when a pale face appears, indigo eyes peering through the glass. 

 _“Keith?”_   The night air spills into his room as Shiro pushes up the window.  Smoothly, Keith crawls through the opening.  The graceful line of his body unfolds as he straightens, and while half of Shiro is busy admiring the image, the other half is busy pulling his blanket tighter around himself.

“Here.”

Shiro finally notices the small Styrofoam box in Keith’s hand; gingerly, he takes it.  The blanket around his shoulder slips because he needs both hands to pry it open; a slice of red velvet cake sits in its center, gleaming soft and moist.

He looks up.  “What—”

“Lance and the others wanted to birthday shower you, but I thought you’d appreciate something a little quieter,” says Keith, shrugging.  His hands flex as if he’s about to tuck them in his pockets; at the last minute, he decides against it.  He gives Shiro a onceover.  “Though, you know, you do kind of need one…”

“My birthday,” echoes Shiro.  “I completely forgot.”

Keith’s mouth quirks.  “Yeah, I figured.” 

He strides past Shiro toward the other side of the room, flicking off the lights.  Once they’re plunged into darkness, Keith turns on his phone’s flashlight, directing it at Shiro.

“Okay, make a wish on 3.”

“Uh—what?”

“Can’t have candles in the dorm or they’ll set off the fire alarm,” explains Keith.  “So this’ll have to do.” He waves his phone slightly for emphasis.  “Now come on.”

Shiro can’t help smiling.  Keith’s singleminded focus can be a weapon, and the way he wields it now is all too endearing, difficult to resist.

“Okay, fine.  1, 2, 3—”  Pursing his lips, he blows out the imaginary candles.  Keith’s flashlight winks out.

In the sudden gloom, Shiro wishes for courage.

The bedroom lights come back on, leaving both him and Keith blinking as their eyes readjust.  From his back pocket, Keith produces a plastic fork, holding it out to Shiro.  Then he sprawls onto Shiro’s red beanbag, chin tilted toward the ceiling.

Sitting on the edge of his desk, Shiro teases: “Not going to ask me about my wish?”

“Wouldn’t want to risk it not coming true,” Keith quips back.  “But if I were you, I’d wish for rest.”

It’s a sudden dip into seriousness.  Keith has shifted forward from his earlier position, his forearms on his knees as he leans into the statement, eyes boring into Shiro’s.

Shiro swallows his bite of cake.  It’s the first food he’s had in a while—maybe that’s why it has a hard time going down.  “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Shiro.  You’ve practically locked yourself in here for the past week.  You think I don’t know what that means?”

Carefully, Shiro sets down the carton.  He moves toward his bed, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders.  Makes a show of adjusting it and his pillows before he speaks again.

“I’ve got a big test.”

“All the better reason for you to _not_ run yourself ragged like this,” Keith argues.  The beanbag crinkles under his weight as he stands up.

“It’s not just the test,” says Shiro.  “There’s still lab, and my thesis, and—”

 _“Shiro._ ”  Keith puts a hand on his shoulder.  “You’re a person outside of all those commitments.”

It’s a small thing to say in the grand scheme of things, maybe.  But Shiro turns despite himself, into the warm presence of Keith at his back.  Keith stares up at him—slighter frame, but still that coiled strength, a pillar Shiro’s been unconsciously leaning on for the past two years.                                                                                         

“So, what, you’re going to _make_ me go to bed?” he asks.  There’s little fight in it—mostly a dryness.  Despite his arguments, he _is_ tired.  It’s just a hard thing to admit to anyone, especially himself.

Keith crosses his arms, but the confrontation is gentle.  As it somehow always manages to be, between them. 

“If that’s what it takes,” he says, and maybe it’s just Shiro’s fatigue, but the words almost sound like a different sort of promise.

 

o.O.o

 

In the morning, Shiro wakes from the best sleep he’s had in a while.  His eyelids have some trouble unsticking, but there’s none of the usual cloudiness, and he’s clearheaded when he finally makes sense of the warmth against his side.

Keith has crawled into the narrow twin bed to act as a barrier of sorts, some kind of restful guard dog between Shiro and his desk, still littered with flash cards from last night.  When Shiro sits up, the bed dips; grumbling, Keith raises his head slightly, voice scratchy as he asks: “What time is it?”

“10 AM,” Shiro reads.

“Hm,” Keith mumbles, which roughly translates to: _“Acceptable.”_ “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” says Shiro.  He nudges Keith’s side jokingly.  “Well-rested.”

 _Endorphins,_ the biomed side of him thinks, distantly.  But the part closest to his heart knows it’s something else: inkspill locks against his pillow, the curve of his best friend’s smile in the morning light.

“Keith,” he starts, and his heart isn’t hammering the way he thought it’d be.  Then again, nothing about this blossoming confession is what he thought it’d be.  The morning of his birthday, in bed with a boy who only laid next to him to make sure he slept.  But it’s right for them, somehow.  Small and soft, like waking up from a dream.  “I have something to tell you.”

“Whatever it is, it can wait until you’ve showered,” Keith grumbles, throwing an arm over his eyes and turning over.  What happens next is _them,_ too: in retaliation, Shiro shoves Keith off the bed.  Keith manages to land on his feet, but he yelps, and then they’re wrestling and playing tug-of-war with Shiro’s towel.  When Shiro finally gets free, it’s to the promise that Keith will still be in his room: “ _I should probably start watching the lecture recordings, or something,_ ” says Keith, making himself comfortable with Shiro’s laptop.

The whole walk down the hall to the bathrooms, Shiro’s smiling.

Yes.  It can wait until then.


End file.
